My condolences, way too sad.

When I retired a couple years back many of my friends said I was foolish, your loosing too much, stay 3 more years and get all you have coming. Stories like this make me soo glad I didn't listen. You just don't know when God will call you home.

Let me start by saying I don't do funerals.  I haven't been to one since 1993.   

Everything lined up perfectly in my life over the last couple of days and I was able to make it to Bill's funeral in Illinois.  I didn't know until 8:00 Friday morning if I could pull it off but when I got the green light from work I was northbound on the Vision by 10:30.  It's a little over 500 miles from my house to his old hometown and I got there about 7:30 Friday night.  The family didn't know I was coming.  Too many things had to fall into place for me to go and I didn't want to give them false hope that I might make it and then not show. 

I got to the funeral home at about 10:30 yesterday morning and there was a parking spot on the street, directly in front of the main entrance.  I wanted the Vision to be highly visible.  I was there in spirit for everyone on this forum.  As I got off the bike, a young couple was walking across the street towards me.  The girl stared into my face, looked at the bike, looked back at me and said "Are you Tom?"  I said, "Yes, you must be one of his girls."  She said "Oh my gosh, I'm Jeannine." She gave me a huge hug and said "I can't believe you came here for us!"  She asked if I had ever met Marsha (Bill's wife).  I said no. 

We walked into the funeral home through the doors where the family was gathered.  The line to greet them was out the side doors, extending into the parking lot.  Jeannine walked over to a lady, touched her on the arm as she came out of an embrace and said "Marsha, this is Tom, Dad's riding buddy."  Needless to say, the emotions is the room ramped up about ten-fold as her eyes flew open and she hugged me like I have never been hugged before.  We stood there for at least two minutes.  You have to imagine the scene.  We are surrounded by several hundred people dressed in suits and dresses and I'm in jeans, boots, my Victory jacket unzipped with my long-sleeve black Vision Rider shirt on underneath.  Over the next 30 minutes, nearly every person there walked over to tell me how much Bill liked riding his fancy bike and taking trips with Marsha.  I never got more than three feet away from Marsha and the girls the whole time. 

As the service was about to start, the funeral director asked me to sit with the honorary pall bearers since I was obviously special to the family. Marsha stopped him and said that she would like for me to sit with the family.  He said "Of course!"  By the time the family got seated, there was only one empty seat left.  Front row, corner seat, next to Marsha.  I was beyond overwhelmed. 

The family priest said all the nice things that try to sink in at a time like this and one of Bill's nephews read some touching remarks that the girls had written about growing up with Bill.  The nephew then related his own stories.  The priest came back up and asked if anyone else would like to speak.  I leaned over and asked Marsha if I could say a few words.  She squeezed my hand and said "That would be great."  I got to the podium, introduced myself and said "I just met Marsha 45 minutes ago and now I am family"  I spent the next 10 minutes talking about why he was so different and special. (No jacket on.  I could feel every face in the room staring either into my eyes or at the Vision-Rider logo on my chest.)  I talked about the forum, the rides, the conversations about our families at every meal we had together.  I told them that in all the days of riding together, we had never once been rained on.  I pointed out that it was 45 degrees outside and clear as a bell.  It had rained on Thursday and my bike didn't get a drop of rain on it Friday or Saturday.  It will rain again Sunday after I am already back home.  I ended by talking bout what a tremendous honor it was to be embraced by his family. 

The family had booked a restaurant about a mile down the road and I was invited to sit with a different group of family members for lunch.  People kept coming by to thank me for coming.  After about an hour, I walked over to where Marsha and the girls were sitting and told them I had to head back south.  Needless to say, it was an unbelievable ending to an unbelievable trip.  I pulled into my garage at 9:30 last night.